How to champion free speech — and avoid campus riots

In an ideal world, Fred Lawrence declares, nobody would need his expertise in the messy, ugly realm of hate speech. Right now, however, the Yale-trained legal scholar is a very busy man.

Hardly a week goes by without some new campus clash involving provocative speakers, student protests -- and fierce arguments about the boundaries of "free speech." Schools as diverse as Berkeley, Princeton, the University of Florida, Middlebury College and the University of Tennessee all have wrestled with such dilemmas.

As a former president of Brandeis University, Lawrence knows first-hand what it's like to confront a free-speech crisis playing out in real time. In his current job as head of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society, Lawrence is able to take a more panoramic view of the intersection between academic ideals and current sources of stress. As a result, he is repeatedly being asked to brief college and university boards of trustees about the best ways of handling whatever new uproars might lie ahead.

This past weekend, I heard Lawrence lay out his framework during a PBK conference at northern California's Asilomar conference center. Here are some of the key ideas that emerged:

Define your school's principles -- and their consequences -- ahead of time. Lawrence stress-tested his audience by asking us to imagine that we were trustees of an imaginary Asilomar College, facing student, faculty and donor pressure to revoke a speaking invitation to a suddenly controversial celebrity. Would we do so? We modeled out different choices, finally deciding that the right call involved widening the event to include different voices, while keeping the original invitation open.

Granted, our approach wasn't guaranteed to work, but at least we had a plan. As Lawrence observed, once a crisis hits, pressures will come from all sides. If school leaders are trying to improvise a strategy in response to chaotic events, they are likely to flip-flop to such a degree that in the end, no one feels well served and the school's reputation can take a lasting hit.

Public universities are bound by tougher rules. The First Amendment's guarantees of free speech apply quite directly to state-run universities, Lawerence pointed out. It's much harder for them to deny speaking opportunities to provocative figures that have been invited on campus by an accredited organization. Privately run schools, by contrast, have greater flexibility to deny access if they deem a certain figure to be unwelcome.

If a speaker is repugnant, it's all right to say so. As Lawrence testified before Congress last year, "Constitutionally protected hate speech still causes harm to members of our community. There is a moral imperative, therefore, for campus leaders to vigorously criticize hate speech––not to suppress it, not to prohibit it, but to identify it for what it is and criticize it … University administrators also have First Amendment rights and also get to speak." 

Work toward a culture of "vigorous civility." It's possible to disagree on deeply felt issues but still keep a legitimate discourse going, Lawrence contended, if both sides agree to several basic ground rules. The first of these: begin with a forced search for common ground. Even on an issue as divisive as abortion, he notes, it's possible for advocates on both sides to agree on the value of well-run adoption programs. Once a sliver of commonality has been found, efforts to keep a civil dialogue going aren't quite so hopeless. (Photo above shows Fred Lawrence at Asilomar with his wife Kathleen, an English-literature scholar.) 

Disagree without delegitimizing. When a civil framework takes hold, both sides acknowledge the other party's right to exist. Lawyers are probably most comfortable with this; there's a a longstanding quip among rivals that "we agree on everything except our opinions." Another way of expressing the same thought: Question ideas without questioning motives.When each side is bent on attacking the other's basis for being, then listening gives way to shouting.

For a fuller overview of the current debate about free speech controversies, see this 2017 article from The Atlantic, summarizing a wide range of Congressional testimony.